Jesus Lizard

ARTICLES ABOUT JESUS LIZARD BY DATE - PAGE 2

For most of the '90s, the best live band anywhere was the Jesus Lizard. Its cutthroat music may not have been for everyone, but the Chicago quartet's performances were everything a rock 'n' roll show should be: a spontaneous blast of personality in which anything could happen, and often did. So when the Jesus Lizard set foot on a Chicago stage next Friday at the Pitchfork Music Festival for the first time in more than a decade, singer David Yow,...

David vs. Goliath. The 300 vs. the Persian horde. The Little Engine That Could vs. the Hill. All classic examples of the little guy coming out on top. What does this have to do with awesome Chicago music festivals that don't actually fight each other? Listen, it's a metaphor -- go along with it. Here, RedEye sizes up the Pitchfork and Lollapalooza lineups. K.G. Reunion Jane's Addiction is more popular than The Jesus Lizard, but organizer Perry Farrell's been playing Jane's songs live for the past few years with various bands.

David Yow, a manic performer who has been bruised, broken and burned in the name of rock 'n' roll numerous times, found himself covered in blood the other day. This time, however, it was fake. The occasion was a movie set in the Arizona desert, where he was playing a villainous role in a violent Western called "Al's Beef" with Dean Stockwell. "The director [Dennis Hauk] wanted me to play a sick, twisted, evil, evil man," Yow says. "And I said, 'Hell, yeah!'" The monthlong movie shoot now over, Yow can return to his regular gig: bringing the rock.

Depicting scenarios that could come straight out of a Stephen King novel, Unsane's horrific album covers hint at the violence contained on its records. With its image of a gore-splattered bathroom, "Blood Run" continues that tradition. More importantly, the album--the trio's first in seven years--hits like a mace. "Killing Time" makes hardcore swing, "Anything" welds sludge to a funky groove and the noose-swaying "Recovery" doubles as an addict's death sentence. Fans of Jesus Lizard and Murder City Devils owe it to themselves to check out Dave Curran, whose gurgling bass puts aggressive tempos in a chokehold.

Tomahawk Mit Gas Supergroups come in all shapes and sizes, from coteries of big stars to obscure side projects. Tomahawk, featuring members of Helmet, The Jesus Lizard, Melvins and Faith No More, falls somewhere in between, but its star may be on the rise. Tomahawk's second album, "Mit Gas," really begins to show the potential of the combo. "Birdsong" begins with some innocent tweeting over the top of bassist Kevin Rutmanis' and drummer John Stanier's lockstep rumble before guitarist Duane Denison blasts in along with vocalist Mike Patton.

The best rock guitarist of the last decade? I nominate Duane Denison, formerly of the late great Jesus Lizard and currently the creative force behind Tomahawk, an indie-rock powerhouse that includes past or current members of Helmet, the Melvins and Faith No More. Denison doesn't get the notice of flashier players, even though he's got the kind of technical skills that music schools anoint with degrees and that jazz and classical virtuosos drool over. Denison's great strength is his ability to sublimate his ego to the song; he's a master of the indelible fill, the offbeat texture, the killer riff.

Kid Rock said last year that rappers are the new rock stars. Now the most popular rock bands take their cues from their even more popular hip-hop brethren, and Q101's Twisted 7 festival Saturday at the United Center clearly adequately proved Kid Rock's this point. This is the annual radio party for assessing the year that was in modern rock, an eight-hour marathon of fast-sellers, trend-hoppers and sacrificial lambs. Rap-rockers ruled, the testosterone flowed, and dreams of head trauma were in the air. The crowd -- mostly teenage boys, pro wrestling fans and Maxim subscribers -- celebrated the bad tidings of Papa Roach and Disturbed, rode the crest of the Offspring's pogo-yourself-silly anthems, and even tolerated the out-of-vogue electro-Goth of Orgy.

After witnessing nearly 2,000 concerts this decade, here are 10 bands and performers who always delivered: 1. The Jesus Lizard: Their records were taut, tense, claustrophobic affairs -- brilliant in their own way but just a long fuse that ultimately led to the place where the band felt most at home: the stage. When the Jesus Lizard broke up a few months ago after giving more than 900 live performances, what amazed is that David Yow is somehow still intact. The singer didn't so much front his powerhouse band as weather it -- bruised and bloodied by every snare hit, bass slap and guitar incision as he literally threw himself into the music, the crowd, the nearest wall.

The notion that no man is an island does not apply to Don Ho. For thousands -- perhaps hundreds of thousands -- of people, Ho is the personification of Hawaii. Whether it's making a cameo in the film "Joe's Apartment" or serving as the butt of a joke in a late-night comedian's monologue, just the mention of Ho's name conjures up lei-bedecked hula girls, surfing and the sugar-white beaches of Waikiki. "I really wish people wouldn't see me that way," says Ho, who's now 69, although he looks a good deal younger in his pub- licity photos.

Jim Kimball plays the drums like a man possessed. Ed Roeser sings like a man obsessed. The two Chicago-music-scene veterans had all the intensity any band, or rock fan, could want as they made their debut under the name the Kimball-Roeser Effect at the Empty Bottle Thursday night. The pair first came together as Lime after playing in bands that helped define Chicago's rock scene in the '90s, Roeser as a founding member of Urge Overkill, Kimball as the second drummer for the Jesus Lizard.